| Gah |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|01:43 am] |
Nothing quite like a sudden bout of depression after a very long spell of non-depression. |
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| New toys! |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|02:08 am] |
I'm now the happy owner of a second-hand iPod touch (the latest gen 8gb model). It's a fun little toy, and does a decent job as a combination mp3 player/ebook reader.
I've also succumbed to temptation and installed Windows 7, which is proving to be quite a step up from Vista (apart from a lack of win7 drivers disabling my third monitor until I figured out I needed to use older Vista drivers to enable it) - I think another hardware upgrade is in order, though, as It's all too easy to peg both CPUs with WoW, iTunes and firefox/stickam running at the same time. (Looking at a triple-core phenom II and AM3 motherboard at this stage) Not much else happening. WoW guild has stopped raiding, meaning I've had to leave my comfort zone and apply to a new one. My combined lack and excess of skill is somewhat disconcerting. And my benefit is probably dropping $20 a week, so I've decided it's a good time to get back on my diet - after all, it's a lot easier to stick to a diet when there's nothing in the cupboard apart from what you're supposed to be eating. |
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| Is this on? |
[Sep. 25th, 2009|04:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  grumpy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Peter Cincotti - I Changed The Rules | ] |
Still here, just in the doldrums a little.
Playing with itunes, and contemplating buying an ipod touch on the strength of Genius Playlists and Mixes (and games).
Enjoying UV treatment for my psoriasis that leaves me with an uncomfortably sunburnt face for two days, twice a week.
Still playing WoW, but it's getting old. No replacement on the horizon.
Saw my first 3d movie, Up. Good movie, the 3d worked better than I was expecting, but the fixed focus took some getting used to. |
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| Whack! Bang! Kapow! |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|08:41 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Spandau Ballet - True | ] |
Went and saw Transformers 2 earlier, and it was a blast. Probably the best popcorn movie I've seen in a while. |
|
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| Bah. |
[May. 27th, 2009|12:37 am] |
Had my first cup of coffee in almost six months, and spilt it on my keyboard. Needless to say, said keyboard is now playing up (two keys aren't working, and another one spits out three characters when i press it). The coffee wasn't bad, but I'm not sure it was worth a replacement keyboard (when I can afford it). While the old keyboard I'm currrently replacing it is a nice split-keyboard design, it sounds a lot like a manual typewriter as opposed to the nice quite sound of the old one. (I think if I'm unable to get the old one working again, I'll replace it with the same model but get a protective cover to prevent future issues)
I'm also looking at cutting down (or stopping, still undecided) my 25-man raiding in WoW, due to a combination of dissatisfaction (both with WoW in general, and the raiding in particular) and possibly seasonal depression. Time to catch up on all those interesting-looking other games I've missed out on. |
|
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| Blah. |
[May. 12th, 2009|11:10 am] |
Well, Star Trek was fun. Both times I saw it. And I might be going to see it again this week, so I guess that demonstrates pretty clearly just how much I enjoyed it. (The downside to the franchise being big-screen-only is the extended period between each installment - time to practice being patient, I guess)
Also, Plants vs. Zombies. It's not your average tower defense game. |
|
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| Star Trek. |
[May. 7th, 2009|01:30 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | star trek | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Double - Your Prayer Takes Me Off | ] |
Just home from going to see it. Wow. Now I have to go see it again, preferably with people to discuss it with afterwards. |
|
|
| Yawn |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|08:33 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  exhausted | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bing Crosby - Sioux City Sue | ] |
Nothing quite like waking up painfully early, and being unable to get back to sleep. |
|
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| Shiny = Good (sometimes) |
[Apr. 9th, 2009|10:22 pm] |
Picked up a new toy for myself - an 8GB media player (with sd-card slot capable of storing up to another 4gb). Very nice, and works well with bog-standard 350mb tv episodes saved as AVIs.
About to engage Malygos on WoW, so back to raiding. |
|
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| Yum, celebratory confectionary |
[Apr. 2nd, 2009|09:29 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | gifts, visitors | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bouncy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Guy Lombardo - Anniversary Song | ] |
Had a friend drop this afternoon by for a chat and to give me a belated birthday box of chocolates. One was nice, and the other is well on the way to being reduced to an empty box and a large pile of foil wrappers. |
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| I can see clearly-er now. |
[Apr. 1st, 2009|08:37 pm] |
I picked up my reading glasses today, and now I get to: a) let my eyes adjust to when I'm wearing them, and b) work out exactly when I should and shouldn't be wearing them. The glasses are designed for use with things out to roughly arm's length (ie, from books to computer monitor range), so I have to decide whether I want to change back to my normal ones when I step up from the computer (going to the kitchen, for example) or not. (It's nice possibly telling that that is probably the hardest decision I've had to make for quite a while)
I've also been putting a little work into a new WoW-centric blog, but I'm going to give it a few more weeks of posting before I look at 'going public' all that much (and it probably isn't of much interest to most people).
Also, I had a look at the new DS (the DSi) at ebgames, but had to wince when I saw the price. Seriously, $400? (Their "Trade your current DS in and get a DSi for $260" offer would be more tempting if I didn't have to trade in my DS to get it) I could buy a 8GB Ipod Touch for that much, and get something quite a bit more functional for my money.
And I got caught out by the first April's Fool prank that's surprised me for quite a while - a chat addon in WoW played the dialup connection sound when I logged onto characters in the game.
I hate April first. |
|
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| Aging quietly, if not gracefully |
[Mar. 24th, 2009|01:32 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | old | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Dorothy Shay - Feudin' And Fightin' | ] |
Well, that's another birthday over and done with - only two more to go until forty. Not sure I'm looking forward to it. |
|
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| Where did I put my warranty card? |
[Mar. 12th, 2009|05:07 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | age, glasses | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Queen - Dreamer's Ball | ] |
I went in today to get my eyes checked, and was caught off guard by something the optometrist said as he was explaining why I was having problems when my eyes were trying to change focus back to the computer screen after a session viewing TV from the other side of the room. "This kind of thing happens when you start getting close to 40." I've never really paid much attention to my age - it's just a number that stubbornly refuses to get smaller.
The realisation that I'm drawing so close to being middle-aged, for all that it shouldn't be surprising, surprised me.
When I do any kind of self-analysis, I perceive myself as a stubbornly solitary Peter Pan, refusing to grow up; my days revolve around reading, watching videos and playing computer games - hardly the life of a mature adult. But it's a way of life that works for me - doing the 9-to-5 thing (not including overtime) almost killed me when I tried it. I guess I feel a little guilty about living an unproductive life many teenagers would kill for, but I'm probably just catching up on the guilt I was too self-absorbed to experience while I was growing up (I've found I'm more conscientious about such things like that, as I age).
But time passes (regardless of my disinclination to notice it doing so), and as I age my component parts begin to lose the resilience of youth.
But what left me most bemused today, was the recognition of both my failing eyesight, and the changes that technology brings. A decade ago I would have been given reading glasses, to compensate for the extra effort my eyes are making when I try to focus on whatever book I was reading. Now, though, I'll be getting a new pair of glasses to wear when I'm at the computer.
Computer glasses, indeed. Well, at least I'll be able to see the kids I'm waving my mouse at when I yell at them to stay off my lawn. |
|
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| Bleary-eyed and blurry visioned. |
[Mar. 10th, 2009|01:36 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Queen - One Year of Love | ] |
After ending up with sore eyes (yet again) after an extended period watching some tv (The Mentalist, an excellent show), I realised that my current glasses are going on perhaps 8 years old. So I've arranged to go get my eyes checked, and see how much my wallet can suffer for a new pair (which I suspect will be needed). |
|
|
| Oh my... |
[Jan. 30th, 2009|01:44 pm] |
My shiny new 22" monitor arrived today. And shiny doesn't do the bezel justice - they weren't kidding when they refered to it as "Piano Finish". But it runs great, looks great (although I need to tweak some settings a little, as WoW looks a tad too dark), and makes the monitors sitting on either side look pale by comparison. (I have to decide what I want to do about my setup now, as three monitors makes for a slightly crowded desktop - might be time to retire the old 15") |
|
|
| Up/Down-grade |
[Jan. 19th, 2009|07:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | David Bowie - Lady Stardust | ] |
After a brief (but mostly happy) dalliance with the Windows 7 beta, I'm back on Vista. Win7 broke itself when I booted the computer this morning, and I spent the next 8 hours installing Vista, only to realise it was the wrong disk (ie, pre-SP1). So I've had my nose rubbed in exactly just how bad Vista originally was. I managed to get a recent drive image of my pre-Win7 Vista install working, so I've escaped the horror that was vanilla Vista, but I'm oddly missing Win7 now. Might have to clean up my system a little, and do a clean install of it (and image it, this time).
Ah well, back to WoW - dailies wait for no dwarf. |
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| It's a scary thing, to purchase content. |
[Jan. 14th, 2009|04:05 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | WALL-E Commentary track | ] |
Bought a copy of the 2-disc WALL-E dvd today. Some pretty nice extras on there, but my god they cut costs with the cardboard case. (I guess they decided at the last minute not to make the case out of paper for ease of recycling) |
|
|
| I <3 Cable |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|06:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians - What I Am | ] |
Downloading the 720p trailer for City of Ember.
Admittedly my normal speeds are more like 150KB/s-250KB/s, but now and then... |
|
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| Grey days aren't that bad. |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|03:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | mellow | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Queen - Somebody to Love | ] |
Playing through Inspector Parker again (it's one of my favourite time-wasters, along with Betrapped!), and listening to an old playlist. Haven't heard a number of these songs for quite a while. The Whole of the Moon, for example. Although I don't remember it being punctuated with quite as much thunder and lightning. (And hail - to think it was over 30C a couple of days earlier)
At least the Curious Case of the Poisonous Muffin is almost over - I'm back on real food (more or less), with a piece of beef roasting in the oven atm to (hopefully) make sandwiches for a couple of days. I'm in two minds about my recovery; while the stomach cramps and vomiting were unpleasant, the 5kg weight loss is a nice silver lining. Will I be able to keep it off? I guess time will tell. |
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